[working the steps]

I haven't kept up with this blog, but I feel like I should, so let me update you on my progress in recovery.

A few weeks ago, I went to a Tuesday night meeting of SCA, drawn primarily by its relatively early time of 6:30, which meant I could get home at a reasonable hour. It meets in a cavernous church basement way down at the end of Christopher street by the water, which means that I have to walk past shop-fronts selling all my addictions to get there — past several fetish shops, a porn shop and even a pipe shop. But it turns out that this so-called "Beginners" meeting is full of guys who've been in the program for decades. Many of them are gay, but like all these groups, it's very welcoming to anyone, gay straight or otherwise, who wants to deal with compulsive sexual behavior.

The structure of this meeting is that after various opening readings, we share about various tools of the program. Short descriptions of these tools — things like making phonecalls, socializing, meetings, literature, prayer and meditation —
are distributed on laminated sheets on the chairs in the circle, so when the meeting chair calls out a particular tool, the person with the corresponding sheet reads it and shares first. We usually get through about two tools a week, and when we finish all of them, I guess we just start over.

This structure is tremendously helpful for a newcomer, especially when I've got all these old-timers to listen to. The discussion of prayer and meditation, for example, was an enlightening and empowering discussion of how different people with a lot of success in sobriety deal with the issue of a Higher Power. The discussion of service was even better because I got to hear several guys talk about how much they enjoy being sponsors, and I got to say how much I needed one. At the break, one of the old-timers came up to me and started talking about sponsorship. He told me he couldn't be my sponsor because he had 22 sponsees already, but he pointed out another old-timer and said I should ask him. His name was John and he'd chaired the previous week's meeting, and afterward he'd come up to me and said, "I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I wish you a long and slow recovery."

Now it was time to risk rejection and ask John to be my sponsor. "There's been a motion that you should be my sponsor," I told him, "and I'm seconding it."

"Oh?" he said. "Who's motion was it?"

I pointed to the other old-timer, and John said, "Oh, my sponsor!"

Thus has begun a relationship that has so far been of great benefit to me, and I believe John when he says it's been good for him too. For the last two Sundays, we've met for brunch at a restaurant in the Village, then headed over to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, where we can find a quiet place to sit, and where it won't be too awkward to discuss sexuality as we read through the Steps in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

John also helped me work out a simple and clear program, which is something we need in the S-fellowships. Dealing with sex addiction is different from dealing with alcoholism or drug addiction because a healthy person can quit those things and be fine, but most of us need to maintain some kind of sexuality in our lives. So sex addicts need to work out a list of activities that are our "bottom lines": the things we can't do if we're to maintain our sobriety. The list is different for each addict. For me, the bottom lines are pornography, sex outside my marriage, sex chat, marijuana, alcohol and other mood-altering drugs. (With alcohol, since I'm not an alcoholic, I'm allowing myself sips for flavor, as with Daniel's recent beer milkshake experiment, but not allowing myself enough to reach any level of intoxication.)

*

I've focused a lot so far on my sex addiction, as if my pot addiction were not a serious issue. In certain ways it's less serious — I've quit for a whole year before, and it hasn't been hard to quit this time around — but pot is also the addiction around which I bargained with myself and failed, and it's what I used to avoid feeling shame and pain and anger — to avoid feeling.

For the last two Sundays, after meeting with John, I've gone to the 2:15 NA meeting at the LGBT Center, Serenity Sundays. There are many words that might describe this meeting, but "serene" is not the first that would come to my mind. First of all, compared to any of the S-fellowship meetings or the Marijuana Anonymous meeting I went to, it's huge. Rather than a circle, the chairs are arranged in sort of a U-shape, with multiple rows on each side, and at the top of the U is a table where first the meeting chair, then the speaker sits. Instead of 8 to 15 people, there are probably 40. It's a racially mixed group of mostly men — about equal parts black, white and Latino — and there's also a little contingent of black lesbians who sit off to one side, as well as a few other women scattered throughout. It's an intensely social group, and the preliminary readings sometimes get a little lost in all the hello kisses and smiles and hugs and chit-chat. Which is all right.

After the preliminaries, the meeting goes to a speaker format, and the speakers the last two weeks have been powerful, speaking from the heart about their addictions and their lives in recovery. There's plenty of black-church-style "Mm-hm!" and "Tell it!", always with respect. Then it goes to general sharing, and the responsive chatter gets even more boisterous, but without ever quite collapsing into cross-talk. (That rooms full of addicts manage to have coherent meetings without any brawls is one of the miracles of these programs.) Some of the stories are harrowing, of lost medical licenses and shooting up in the ICU, of shoveling snow on the corner so the dealer will have a place to stand, of having to get divorced because the wife won't stop doing coke, of peeing in bottles to avoid a break in the crack binge, of disease and prostitution. Some people share off-topic rants about shitty boyfriends or trouble at work. And a lot of people share how many days or months or years they've been sober, how grateful they are, how they're getting their lives together and feeling hope again. This week, a guy with seven years off heroin was practically chewing off his own arm because he was 29 days off cigarettes. "They say that addiction leads to death, and that's what this is, you know? And I don't wanna use today. But, like, every deli in my neighborhood is a cop-spot, you know? But I don't wanna have a heart attack at 42. I don't wanna die. So I am not gonna use. Today."

There are also a lot of people dealing with sex addiction, and some of them know it. I've made a point of introducing myself as a sex addict, and at first I was doing it to be clear about my own addictions and to make sure I didn't hide behind shame in a meeting, of all places. But someone came up to me after that first NA meeting and said, "Hey, maybe I should be in one of those S-fellowships," and then laughed nervously and said he was just kidding. Then this week he shared that he was compulsively picking up dangerous guys and bringing them home and sexually binging, and that he'd made an agreement with others in the meeting not to take anyone home for a while. And after this week's meeting, someone came up and explicitly asked me about the S-fellowships, and we exchanged numbers. So it turns out another reason I'm calling myself a sex addict in this meeting is to carry the message that sex, too, can be an addiction, and it can get us killed just like heroin or crack or alcohol.

Anyway, that's what's going on with my recovery, and I'll try to post here more often.

[40 days]

Below is a post that I briefly put up on Palaverist before thinking better of it. I remembered that I haven't discussed the issue of sex addiction yet with my parents, and that my therapist recommended I give it 90 days before I do, so I'm sticking with that. But I like what I wrote, and I think it might be helpful for some new readers.

*

Today is the 40th day of my recovery, and the skies have opened up in Biblical fashion. I suppose it's as good a time as any, then, to open a different sort of floodgate and explain more of what it is that's got me dancing the Twelve-Step.

Along with marijuana addiction, the serious issue that I'm confronting is sex addiction. Now, I know that that term conjures some frightening images — it certainly does for me — so let me ask up front that you keep your imagination in check and try to understand that this kind of addiction can be about relatively mundane activities. I haven't physically hurt anyone or engaged in non-consensual activities. I have, however, gone beyond the generously liberal bounds of what was permissible in my marriage, and I've done so in two ways. First, I have, on occasion, engaged in certain activities that I find morally problematic. Second, I have engaged in activities that were permissible within my marriage, but done them secretly, which was not acceptable.

I don't believe that misbehavior of the sort I engaged in is necessarily addictive behavior. In my own case, however, it's less the specific behaviors than the underlying obsessions and patterns, including activities that didn't break my personal rules or the agreements of my marriage, that have made it clear to me that I have a problem. The framework of addiction has been helpful to me in understanding that problem and in working out what to do about it. I want to make it clear that I do not intend to use the concept of addiction to absolve myself of responsibility for my actions, but rather as a tool to help me take responsibility meaningfully.

Most Twelve-Step fellowships have some kind of introductory material that describes the addicts who are their members, and in the case of what are known as S-fellowships, those descriptions have fit me all too well. S-fellowships are Twelve-Step programs devoted to sexual addiction or compulsion in one way or another. The granddaddy is Sexaholics Anonymous, or SA, which takes the rather extreme position of discouraging any and all sex outside heterosexual marriage, including masturbation. Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) is a breakaway group that was founded by gay men who felt excluded by SA, and it's the most active of the S-fellowships in New York City. Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA) and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) are similar. These latter groups all encourage their members to find their own definitions of abstinence, sobriety and healthy sexuality, recognizing that a given activity might be perfectly fine for one person but deeply compulsive and demoralizing for another.

I have been regularly attending an SCA meeting each Tuesday night, and that's where I found my sponsor, who has been in the program since 1983. It's called a Beginner's Meeting, but its core group consists of a number of men who've got years of sexual sobriety. I'm also a regular at a Thursday night meeting of SAA, which has a very different flavor, attracting a high number of newcomers. That was my first Twelve-Step meeting, and I was one of five first-timers that night. Beyond those two meetings, I've also attended meetings of other programs, including Marijuana Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

I am deeply grateful for the experience of the last 40 days. In many ways sobriety has been difficult, and it has thrown my life into turmoil. Certainly it's been humbling to admit that I can't manage my own desires — my own life — without help from a Higher Power (more about that in another post).

But I have felt an enormous sense of relief and a freedom I didn't know was possible. For the first time in my life, I am being honest with myself and with others. In admitting my powerlessness over my addictions — by admitting that my life has become unmanageable — I have freed myself from the endless obligation to defend my every action and way of being. I feel like my ears have been unplugged. I babble less and listen more (though I still babble plenty and have a lot of work to do in terms of learning to listen better). I can dance.

That last one matters. For years Jenny has wanted to take a ballroom dance class with me, and I've always waved it off as one of those things I just don't do. I was unathletic as a child, and compulsory Israeli folk dancing at summer camp when I was, like, nine years old was such an unpleasant and awkward experience that I have written off organized dancing ever since. Until I admitted my addictions and my secrets, a part of my mind connected dance with exposure — I would be shown up and humiliated — and I recoiled. In the last few weeks, though, Jenny and I have been enjoying a ballroom dance class each Saturday, and I can now swing, rumba, foxtrot and waltz with varying degrees of skill and complexity. That I could not do these things before is baffling, and I am having a blast with them now. And it would never have occurred to me, before going into recovery, that a good way to make amends for broken promises is to practice my promenade and my box-step.

Time and again in my life, I have discovered that I know far less than I thought I knew. This happened when I went to college, and again when I went to India. (Looking back on who I was before that trip, I wonder sometimes how I could even walk down the street without having my head explode from ignorance and prejudice.) It happened when I began to practice Buddhist meditation, and it's happening with a vengeance now. Zen masters talk about the wisdom of no mind, and I'm starting to see what they're talking about.

In the last 40 days, I have been hit hard once again with the realization of how little I know and how much there is to learn from others. I sit in rooms full of addicts now because I need to, and I'm no better than anyone else in there, and they all have something to teach me. I pray each day for the courage to keep listening.

[dfw]

I am rereading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, for obvious reasons. Here, from an old Salon interview:

I get the feeling that a lot of us, privileged Americans, as we enter our early 30s, have to find a way to put away childish things and confront stuff about spirituality and values. Probably the AA model isn't the only way to do it, but it seems to me to be one of the more vigorous.

And further:

It seems to me that the intellectualization and aestheticizing of principles and values in this country is one of the things that's gutted our generation. All the things that my parents said to me, like "It's really important not to lie." OK, check, got it. I nod at that but I really don't feel it. Until I get to be about 30 and I realize that if I lie to you, I also can't trust you. I feel that I'm in pain, I'm nervous, I'm lonely and I can't figure out why. Then I realize, "Oh, perhaps the way to deal with this is really not to lie." The idea that something so simple and, really, so aesthetically uninteresting -- which for me meant you pass over it for the interesting, complex stuff -- can actually be nourishing in a way that arch, meta, ironic, pomo stuff can't, that seems to me to be important. That seems to me like something our generation needs to feel.

Good God, yes.

[qualification]

Last night I went to the Tuesday-night SAA meeting for the first time. It was by far the largest twelve-step meeting I've been to, with something like 25 people filling the room. In some ways that's good — it certainly made me realize I'm not alone in my addictions, and there was a kind of organizational crispness — but it was also a bit impersonal, and not everyone got a chance to share.

The third Tuesday of the month in this group is a Qualification Meeting, which means that someone gives a 20-minute share on why he or she qualifies to be a member of SAA — in other words, on the nature of his or her addiction. It's what's known as a First Step presentation, and it takes a certain amount of bravery to lay out one's whole addictive past in front of a group of people, many of them strangers.

There were parts of last night's Qualification that I identified with and parts I didn't, but it certainly raised a lot of questions. I have a long sexual history, much of it exotic, and it seems facile and dishonest to label as addictive behavior or "acting out" every part of it that wasn't connected to a long-term relationship. But what was healthy and what was not? What was addiction and what was not? I suppose a starting point is to begin writing the story of my sex life and see how it plays out, see what emotions are connected with the different phases and events. I'm a little afraid of writing Portnoy's Complaint, but there are worse things one could do (and I have done worse things in the thrall of my addiction).

The Qualification also raised questions about admitting my powerlessness, surrendering and handing things over to a Higher Power. I'm acting as if — pretending I believe in a Higher Power, more or less — and hoping that works, but I don't know where I really stand on the issue. Nor, I think, have I fully accepted my own powerlessness over my addiction, in part because the borders of that addiction are still not fully clear.

But then there's a lot I'm uncertain about right now. There is a Zen exhortation, "Just don't know," that I need to embrace. There are a lot of things I need to stop knowing: my views on God and church and synagogue, my views on sex and drugs, my sense of who I am and what I'm capable of. It's a long journey to achieve anything like genuine acceptance of ignorance.

[working the steps]

So I have now read the section on the First Step in the SAA book, and I want to start working it. Do I just start on my own? Do I get a sponsor? I've got this nebulous sense that I'm going to do this wrong, and I'm not sure how to begin asking that question, or who to ask it of.

There's an awkwardness, a fear of rejection, in asking for a sponsor, and I'm not sure I've met anyone yet who would be right for the role. The SAA group I've gone to offers "temporary sponsors," so I might try that approach.

I suppose all of this is ultimately about fear of actually working the Step. But looking at the book again, I see it says that "we get help from someone in the program, usually our sponsor, to work the First Step." And that makes obvious sense: doing it on our own is exactly not the point.

I need a sponsor, which means I need to go to enough meetings to find one.

[marijuana anonymous]

Yesterday I went to my first Marijuana Anonymous meeting, and I just barely made it.

Ever since last Saturday night, when I went looking for the NA meeting that was supposed to be at a church on Schermerhorn and was told it wasn't there, I've been suspicious that any new meeting I try to attend won't be happening. So when I got to the New Church on 35th Street and saw that it was under renovation, my heart sank. I saw a worker go in the door, and beyond him I could see serious construction going on: a saw table, equipment strewn everywhere, paper covering the floors. I turned to leave, then hesitated, and finally spotted an older white woman going in: definitely not a construction worker. So I decided to push past the entryway and see what I found.

Fortunately, there was in fact a meeting, upstairs, in a room still heavily under renovation as well. During the opening 12-minute meditation, we had the added distractions of saws and hammering from time to time, but despite the dust and the chaos, it was actually a really good meeting.

There were a few differences from the S-Fellowship meetings (S-Fellowship is a catch-all term for the various 12-step groups that deal with sexuality). For one thing, there was way less shame in the room, which gave the proceedings a different flavor. Pot is very socially acceptable, and most of the addicts had a history of sharing it with those around them rather than hiding it and living in secrecy, though one guy shared that he had kept his daily use clandestine from his kids for years. For another, there were two women — still heavily outnumbered by the men, but I liked their presence. And potheads tend to be people I like anyway, so it was pleasant to be in a room full of potheads in recovery. (A cute feature of MA: some addicts introduce themselves as, "Hi, I'm [Name], and I'm a pothead." I'm not sure it's a strong enough admission for me — I've been an admitted pothead for years, but the word "addict" is still hard to say — but it's certainly cheerful.)

And although marijuana is not exactly the monkey on my back, and I am more convinced than ever that my focus needs to be on the sexuality and secrecy issues, it was good to be able to identify and share about the marijuana withdrawal process. I found their brochure on marijuana detox to be helpful; even though I'm not facing most of the symptoms listed, I have been having intensely vivid dreams, and it's interesting to discover that that's a common effect of quitting pot. (I had similarly intense dreams during my first, pot-free week in Bombay when I went to India for the first time, and I blamed that on the malaria drugs. I can't remember having such dreams early on in Korea, though, or when I was staying with my wife's parents before the wedding.)

After the main meeting, there was a quick business meeting, the first I've attended. The only real purpose was to get approval for paying the room rent, which only required special approval because there hadn't been the usual business meeting in February, because the box of paperwork and cash had been buried in the construction rubble. (Amazingly, it turned up again with the cash intact.) It was interesting to see a little bit of that side of the Fellowship, and I think the business end of things is something I'll probably get more involved with as I go further in my recovery.

As things wrapped up, we were invited by the facilitator to join him for a bite, so I went with him, along with a woman from Long Island City who'd been clean for all of seven days. It was nice to talk outside of a group and get some more insight and just basic human contact. We headed over to a deli on Fifth Ave, where St. Patrick's Day paraders were still streaming past, and talked about our sobriety issues mostly. The facilitator, A, had shared at the meeting that he was feeling nervous about going out to a bar with friends later, so he thanked us for keeping him connected to the world for another hour instead of lost in his own head. Then he and I rode the F train back to Brooklyn together, and he assured me that the Brooklyn MA group really does meet on Wednesdays at 7:15 like it says on the website, so maybe I'll check that out. (He was also very keen to write down the name of the novel I kept mentioning, Infinite Jest.)

On a different note, I had been stressing out over when, how and whether to talk to my parents about my addiction and recovery. I asked my therapist about that, and his response was unequivocal. "I don't normally give direct advice," he said, "but I think you should wait — wait at least until you've been sober for 90 days and you're more settled and have some perspective." That was similar to the advice I got when I called F from the SAA Thursday Group phone list, but it was a relief to hear it from a professional. It means I'm off the hook for a while. And there's sense to it: as F said, you need to make sure you only tell people who will support you — I think my parents would as best they could — and you need to be sure you're not harming others, a much more difficult question in the case of my parents (or my wife's).

Indeed, the first 90 days seems to be an important concept in 12-step groups. I've been advised to really focus on my basic sobriety during this period — staying away from pot, alcohol, porn, non-marital sex and sex chat, in my case — and not go too crazy trying to do everything else, like avoiding substitutes or trying to work all the steps at once or whatever. It seems sound. So far the sobriety has been a blessing, and I have no desire to go back, but it hasn't been that long yet (today is Day 11).

As for today, I will stay sober and not act out, one day at a time.

[a place to get clean]

So this is my first post in this new blog. Let me start it out right: I'm a sex addict and a pot addict, and I'm working on my recovery.

I guess I wanted a place where I could post about my experiences with the recovery process, from my thoughts on different Twelve-Step Groups to links to things that relate to my recovery. If reading this is a help to you, that's great. But really it's just another way of opening up.

I do have a regular blog, but it's very public and associated with my name. I like the anonymity of this blog, which obviously fits the ethos of the Twelve-Step communities. The name of this blog is [staying honest] because I believe that the root of my addiction problem is not sex or pot, but dishonesty and secrecy, and I am working to live a more transparent, open, honest life — one in which I do not delude myself and others about fundamental aspects of who I am.

I have chosen the lotus as a visual icon because of its symbolic meaning in Buddhism, where it represents purity of body, speech, and mind floating above the muddy waters of attachment and desire. The Buddhist path and Buddhist techniques are important to me as tools for sobriety, honesty and moral living, and I will try to integrate them into my work on the Twelve Steps.

At this point, I've been sober and free of acting out for eight days. I have begun to take the first step.